Should the advice the narrator gives on burn notice be taken seriously?

The advice given on Burn Notice by the narrator is helpful as a starting primer. One of the great things about Burn Notice is that you can watch it and then go back to other spy fiction where they use similar techniques but don’t explain what they’re doing to get a better grasp of what’s going on.

It also walks the viewer through a lot of social engineering and various manipulation techniques.

You can take the advice for what it is. It’s better and more comprehensive that what you’ll get on most similar shows, but you should check it against other sources.

It is television, it’s primary goal is to create an enjoyable experience. It won’t be 100% accurate, but it is a great way to start getting your brain thinking in the right direction. If he’s to be believed, the series creator Matt Nix was/is friendly with an agent who worked in intelligence before becoming an consulting producer on the show proper. His name is Michael Wilson. (source via Hollywood Reporter.) Most of the show’s spy advice comes directly from him.

The effects on the show are all practical i.e. real rather than CGI based and, for fun mostly, their tech guy built and tested all the devices the show uses to see if the solutions would actually work. Like most of Hollywood, they leave out some key ingredients needed to make functional bombs.

A lot of effort, especially in the early seasons, went into making the entire show plausible. Basically, Burn Notice is to spies what old school Law & Order is to cops. Is it close? Eh, it’s close enough.